Archbishop-designate Ronald Hicks, from Illinois, is about to be put in as archbishop at his new dwelling base on Friday — and all of it begins with a knock on the door of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
“With his pastoral workers he’ll in all probability knock on the door thrice,” mentioned David Gibson, Director of Faith and Tradition at Fordham College. “This is Catholicism. It’s all about symbols and indicators and the facility of these symbols.”
Gibson likens Friday’s ceremony to a presidential inauguration. However these occur each 4 years. That is New York’s first new archbishop in 14 years.
“This can be a actual historic event for one of many largest archdioceses in america,” Gibson mentioned.
Seventy-six-year outdated Cardinal Timothy Dolan will retain his crimson hat — and voting powers for any Papal Conclave — till his eightieth birthday — 4 years from now. At the moment, The Pope might elevate Hicks to Cardinal.
“Archbishop Hicks will simply have to chill his heels for awhile,” Gibson mentioned.
After Friday’s ceremony begins with that knock on the door, there might be a studying of the Papal letter putting in Hicks. After which, the brand new archbishop will preside over his first Mass and Homily. And there may very well be fairly an viewers. The New York space has greater than two million Catholics. There are 70 million throughout the nation.
“We’re very enthusiastic about it,” mentioned Sandra Johnson of East Granby Connecticut, who was visiting St. Patrick’s Wednesday together with her husband Phil. “The voice that comes from this church resonates far past New York Metropolis.”
What to know in regards to the new chief of the Archdiocese of New York
Hicks, the present bishop of Joliet, Illinois, is changing the retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan, a outstanding conservative determine within the U.S. Catholic hierarchy. Hicks takes over after Dolan final week finalized a plan to determine a $300 million fund to compensate victims of sexual abuse who had sued the archdiocese.
Dolan had submitted his resignation in February, as required when he turned 75. However the Vatican typically waits to make essential management modifications in dioceses if there’s lingering abuse litigation or different governance issues that have to be resolved by the outgoing bishop.
The handover, although, represents a big new chapter for the U.S. Catholic Church, which is forging a brand new period with the Chicago-born Leo as the primary American pope. Leo and the U.S. hierarchy have already proven willingness to problem the Trump administration on immigration and different points, and Hicks is seen as very a lot a Leo-style bishop.
Hicks, 58, grew up in South Holland, Illinois, a brief distance from the suburban Chicago childhood dwelling of Leo, the previous Robert Prevost.
Like Prevost, who spent 20 years as a missionary in Peru, Hicks labored for 5 years in El Salvador heading a church-run orphanage program that operated in 9 Latin American and Caribbean nations.
In November, Hicks endorsed a particular message from the U.S. Convention of Catholic Bishops condemning the Trump administration’s immigration raids, which have focused Chicago particularly.
In an announcement then urging Catholics to share the message, Hicks mentioned it “affirms our solidarity with all our brothers and sisters because it expresses our issues, opposition, and hopes with readability and conviction. It’s grounded within the church’s enduring dedication to the Catholic social instructing of human dignity and a name for significant immigration reform.”
Although they each hail from Chicago, Hicks solely met the long run pope in 2024, when then-Cardinal Prevost visited one among Hicks’ parishes and took half in a query and reply dialog for the general public.
Hicks, who sat within the entrance pew, mentioned he discovered that day what kind of future pope Leo can be and mentioned he favored what he noticed each in his public remarks after which of their non-public dialog.
He mentioned he acknowledged their shared backgrounds and priorities to construct bridges. “We grew up actually in the identical radius, in the identical neighborhood collectively. We performed in the identical parks, went swimming in the identical swimming pools, like the identical pizza locations.”
Hicks served as a parish priest in Chicago and dean of coaching at Mundelein Seminary earlier than Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich made him vicar normal of the archdiocese in 2015. Three years later, Hicks was made an auxiliary bishop, and in 2020 Pope Francis named him bishop of Joliet, serving round 520,000 Catholics in seven counties.
The New York archdiocese is among the many largest within the nation, serving roughly 2.5 million Catholics in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York Metropolis, in addition to seven counties to the north.
